Andrew Kooman is an author and playwright from

Red Deer The red deer (''Cervus elaphus'') is one of the largest deer species. A male red deer is called a stag or hart, and a female is called a hind. The red deer inhabits most of Europe, the Caucasus Mountains region, Anatolia, Iran, and parts of wes ...

, Alberta, Canada.

Personal life

Andrew Kooman is from

, Alberta, and graduated from the Bachelor of Arts collaborative degree program between

Red Deer College , mottoeng = To Greater Things Through Learning , established = 1964 , type = Public polytechnic institute , president = Stuart Cullum , city = Red Deer , state = Alberta , country = Canada , students = 7,500 , undergrad = , campus = Ur ...

and the

University of Calgary The University of Calgary (U of C or UCalgary) is a public research university located in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The University of Calgary started in 1944 as the Calgary branch of the University of Alberta, founded in 1908, prior to being ins ...

in 2003. He also studied

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

and creative writing at a university in

Edmonton Edmonton ( ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Alberta. Edmonton is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Alberta's central region. The city ancho ...

, and graduated from the Multimedia Web Developer program at the University of Calgary in 2008. As of June 2012, he was working in

public relations Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing and disseminating information from an individual or an organization (such as a business, government agency, or a nonprofit organization) to the public in order to influence their perception. P ...

. Andrew now lives with his wife and son in

London, Ontario London (pronounced ) is a city in southwestern Ontario, Canada, along the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor. The city had a population of 422,324 according to the 2021 Canadian census. London is at the confluence of the Thames River, approximate ...

Activism

Andrew Kooman first became aware of the issue of

human trafficking Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others. This may encompass providing a spouse in the context of forced marriage, or the extrac ...

while he was working for the Christian nonprofit organization Youth with a Mission (YWAM) in southeast Malaysia, where he met child victims of human trafficking, but Kooman later came to realize that human trafficking is an issue in Canada as well; the

Royal Canadian Mounted Police The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP; french: Gendarmerie royale du Canada; french: GRC, label=none), commonly known in English as the Mounties (and colloquially in French as ) is the federal police, federal and national police service of ...

(RCMP) estimate that between 600 and 800 people are trafficked into Canada every year. Kooman has spoken about the cases in which people have been trafficked into

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, makin ...

and Edmonton to work in the

sex industry The sex industry (also called the sex trade) consists of businesses that either directly or indirectly provide Sex worker, sex-related products and services or adult entertainment. The industry includes activities involving direct provision of s ...

, and has posited that

sex worker A sex worker is a person who provides sex work, either on a regular or occasional basis. The term is used in reference to those who work in all areas of the sex industry.Oxford English Dictionary, "sex worker" According to one view, sex work is d ...

s have likely been trafficked into his hometown of Red Deer as well since it is also located along

Alberta Highway 2 Alberta Provincial Highway No. 2, commonly referred to as Highway 2 or the Queen Elizabeth II Highway, is a major highway in Alberta that stretches from the Canada–United States border through Calgary and Edmonton to Grande P ...

. Kooman continued to work in Malaysia with YWAM for two years, towards the end of which time he visited Singapore, where he attended an international conference on human trafficking, there learning details on the issue that shocked him. The conference focused on the

military use of children Children (defined by the Convention on the Rights of the Child as people under the age of 18) have been recruited for participation in military operations and campaigns throughout history and in many cultures. Children in the military, includ ...

and the

prostitution of children Child prostitution is prostitution involving a child, and it is a form of commercial sexual exploitation of children. The term normally refers to prostitution of a minor, or person under the legal age of consent. In most jurisdictions, child p ...

. One of the facts that stuck with Kooman was that there are children aged five and under who are forcibly prostituted daily, and that many of these children end up spending their entire lives as human trafficking victims. Kooman is the director of Raise Their Voice, a creative, justice-driven, nonprofit organisation in Red Deer. The other four members of the organization are his family members. With the help of two brothers Matthew and Daniel , Andrew established Unveil Studios.

Writing career

Andrew Kooman is an author and playwright. All of Kooman's writings focus on

justice Justice, in its broadest sense, is the principle that people receive that which they deserve, with the interpretation of what then constitutes "deserving" being impacted upon by numerous fields, with many differing viewpoints and perspective ...

and many of the issues he writes about are

gender Gender is the range of characteristics pertaining to femininity and masculinity and differentiating between them. Depending on the context, this may include sex-based social structures (i.e. gender roles) and gender identity. Most cultures u ...

-based. Kooman's first literary reaction to human trafficking was to write some short stories. Eventually, he also started writing the play that became ''

She Has a Name ''She Has a Name'' is a play about human trafficking written by Andrew Kooman in 2009 as a single act and expanded to full length in 2010. It is about the trafficking of children into sexual slavery and was inspired by the deaths of 54 people i ...

'' to bring attention to the issue of human trafficking, specifically in its connections to sexual exploitation. In 2009, the script of ''She Has a Name'' was given the Scripts at Work/

Alberta Playwrights Network The Alberta Playwrights Network (APN) is a professional association that was founded in 1985 to develop and support playwrights. It hosts a competition called the New Play Development Program. Gordon Pengilly is a dramaturge for the Alberta Playwri ...

Award. By February 2012, Kooman was working on a screenplay version of ''She Has a Name'' to expose it to a larger audience. Some

Americans Americans are the Citizenship of the United States, citizens and United States nationality law, nationals of the United States, United States of America.; ; Although direct citizens and nationals make up the majority of Americans, many Multi ...

expressed an interest in staging ''She Has a Name'' in the United States. After starting to write this play, Kooman read about the Ranong human-trafficking incident in a Canadian newspaper and also heard about it through a friend of his who was working at an aftercare centre in

Bangkok Bangkok, officially known in Thai language, Thai as Krung Thep Maha Nakhon and colloquially as Krung Thep, is the capital and most populous city of Thailand. The city occupies in the Chao Phraya River delta in central Thailand and has an estima ...

, Thailand to restore the

dignity Dignity is the right of a person to be valued and respected for their own sake, and to be treated ethically. It is of significance in morality, ethics, law and politics as an extension of the Enlightenment-era concepts of inherent, inalienable ...

of former sex workers. Knowing that many of the impoverished girls who are smuggled in this manner become enslaved in brothels as child prostitutes, Kooman used the incident in the backstory of the play.For Kooman's identification of the Ranong human-trafficking incident with child prostitution, see *For Kooman's appropriation of the Ranong human-trafficking incident for the play's backstory, see There was a tour of ''She Has a Name'' in 2012, and the final performances were held in Red Deer. Kooman was glad to have the tour conclude in his hometown because the people of

Central Alberta Central Alberta is a region located in the Canadian province of Alberta. Central Alberta is the most densely populated rural area in the province. Agriculture and energy are important to the area's economy. Geography Central Alberta is bordere ...

were very supportive of the play. During the tour, Kooman was awarded the Outstanding Alumnus Provincial Award Celebrating Excellence (PACE) by the Alberta Association of Colleges & Technical Institutes (AACTI) and the Alberta Ministry of Enterprise. In conjunction with this award, a $5000 scholarship was set up in Kooman's name, which he chose to have awarded to students who evince creativity, leadership, and a commitment to those who are in need. The PACE Award ceremony is biennial, and took place on June 13 in Edmonton at the AACTI Board of Governors Conference. Before writing ''She Has a Name'', Kooman had written other pieces of literature that had been published, such as the

young adult novel Young adult fiction (YA) is a category of fiction written for readers from 12 to 18 years of age. While the genre is primarily targeted at adolescents, approximately half of YA readers are adults. The subject matter and genres of YA correlate ...

'' Ten Silver Coins: The Drylings of Acchora'', but this was his first full-length play. He had, however, been writing shorter plays since 2007, and has written other full-length plays since ''She Has a Name'', including one about

Richard Wurmbrand Richard Wurmbrand, also known as Nicolai Ionescu (24 March 1909 – 17 February 2001) was a Romanian Evangelical Lutheran priest, and professor of Jewish descent. In 1948, having become a Christian ten years before, he publicly said Communism an ...

, a Romanian Christian who was a

political prisoner A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention. There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although n ...

of the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

in the 1950s, and another about the

Nazi occupation of the Netherlands Despite Dutch neutrality, Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands on 10 May 1940 as part of Fall Gelb (Case Yellow). On 15 May 1940, one day after the bombing of Rotterdam, the Dutch forces surrendered. The Dutch government and the royal family re ...

; these plays are called ''We Are The Body'' and ''Delft Blue'' respectively.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kooman, Andrew 21st-century Canadian novelists Canadian Christians 21st-century Canadian dramatists and playwrights Canadian human rights activists Canadian humanitarians Canadian public relations people Canadian male short story writers Canadian women's rights activists Child crime victim advocates Children's rights activists Canadian male novelists Christian novelists Canadian crime fiction writers Canadian historical fiction writers Living people Organized crime writers People from Red Deer, Alberta Sexual abuse victim advocates Urban fantasy writers Writers from Alberta Human trafficking in Canada Human trafficking in Thailand Canadian male dramatists and playwrights 21st-century Canadian short story writers Year of birth missing (living people)